Imagine walking home from a night out finding a spray can with some paint still in it. I’m very fascinated about random scribbles on walls. I think exposing yourself or your ideas is something we all have inside of us, I’m just lucky to have found a way of sharing that with a larger crowd and getting the attention I crave. What is your relationship with this inner need, how long it last the satisfaction for a just completed piece? I’ve always been interested in artistic urgency that drives you to communicate an idea outdoor, visible to all. I still see great new artists coming up so thats really refreshing, although I believe its much harder to stand out from the crowd now then what it was 10 years ago. Well, like every other populist movement you will have someone jumping the wagon to make a quick buck or to get attention. I just hope it’s not getting to be too much!Ĭan you see a future for this movement? How do you think the media attention will develop through street art? With this creating a link between the artists and the viewers on another level then just seeing a piece of art on a big wall! I see several other festival are aiming for the same which is great. If it’s only a gathering of artist painting walls it’s not as interesting as if you attach something too it! NuArt has been great at involving the locals into the festival, arranging workshops, presentations, talks, debates education and walks. Only in the last 3-5 years it seems every American city has got its own festival! Which in one way is great for the people, but I miss sone context. It’s becoming more and more easy to get permission to do walls, and internationally the exploding amount of street art festivals has been amazing to witness. It’s amazing to see how much has changed since I first began! I mean, coming from Norway we are always a bit late to the party, so I have seen how it was like before it got embraced by the people. What is your point of view, what do you like and what would you like to change about this great “machine”? You have more than a decade of street work on your shoulders, and in these years we have witnessed the explosion of the street art movement worldwide. By painting a street piece or a mural using this as an inspiration I hope to inspire just a few people to think beyond what they can just see with their eyes, I hope they’ll be able to scratch below the surface! Well the graffiti still remains on the wall, its just laying below the white. Imagine a wall that has been painted with colorful graffiti, and then overpainted in white. Maybe get them to question what they see every day. Like I mentioned before, it has been a mission to change peoples view. What has brought into your life the artistic expression, the mural? I think that the first message coming from your art is always an invitation to look beyond, to discover life in a different sense, to pull out the joyful aspect that resides in us. I would hate a world that is not visually challenging! In my opinion we need some contrast and change in our life to see the variables and open our minds a little more. ![]() One of my missions is to open peoples eyes to something more than just what is perceived as the norm. But for me creativity helps to discover the opposite.įor sure it would be a pessimistic view of life, but do you think is honest to associate graffiti culture to something more vital, colorful, while the rest seems discolored and free from stimulus? With all the visual input you get these days it can be easy to feel like your disappearing in a jungle of noise. Well, yeah, I work a lot with the colors and contrasts, as you might see strong contrasts has been an ongoing theme in my works for a long time! I think a lot of people will discover, if they really look within themselves, that they can be a little bit grey. ![]() ![]() What if it was the opposite? What if looking within ourselves we discover only gray while we are surrounded by multicolored banners? Hey Martin, let’s start from the color, in most of your pieces the color explodes behind a gray cover, or is within us while everything else is gray like concrete. Since his artistic debut in 2004, he has had several solo shows and participated in many group exhibitions, both nationally and in international metropoles like Tokyo, Paris, London, New York and Los Angeles. He use grey tones as a basis but add’s vibrant colours to break the monochrome concrete expression and bring a splash of life to his motives. His interest for decay has developed his style, creating either unity or conflict between materials, backgrounds, and human intervention. He looks for inspirations in people, city landscapes, old buildings, graffiti, posters and decaying walls. Norwegian Martin Whatson has a continuous urge to search for beauty in what is commonly dismissed as ugly, out of style or simply left behind.
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